Fire

two TVs with Fire TV and speaker with Harman audio for 408 euros

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Xiaomi has gone overboard with this pack that it has available on its website. If you were thinking of renewing your old TV, now is a good time to do it. You can take the Xiaomi TF 32 + the Xiaomi TV F 43 and the speaker Xiaomi Bluetooth Speaker at a price you won’t believe: 408 euros. Xiaomi TV F 32 2026 + Xiaomi TV F 43 2026 + Xiaomi Bluetooth Speaker The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A perfect pack to have a TV with Fire TV twice The crown jewels of this pack that Xiaomi offers on its website are these two TVs. These are two models belonging to the Xiaomi F 2026 series. Both have the same characteristics, what changes is their diagonal: 32 and 43 inchesbeing perfect options to renew old televisions in the kitchen or bedroom or equip your second home with them. The best thing about this TV from the Chinese manufacturer is that it integrates Fire TV as an operating systemthe same one worn by the Fire TV Stick from Amazon. This translates into full integration with Alexa and a fully optimized interface. Its design stands out for its almost non-existent edges and metallic finish, but there are many other things it houses inside that deserve to be highlighted. For example, although the panel is 60 Hz, it allows reaching 120 Hz in games thanks to the Game Boost mode. In audio it is compatible with Dolby Audio and DTS Virtual:X And, in addition, it comes with a , double that of the previous generation, which will prevent you from having to delete apps every now and then. Likewise, it stands out for being compatible with Apple AirPlaysomething that not many TVs in its price range can boast of. Regarding the Xiaomi Bluetooth Speaker that comes in the pack, what stands out most is that it allows professional adjustment thanks to the Harman AudioEFX audio software, thus offering a more balanced sound. In addition, the speaker incorporates touch controls and offers a total power of 40 W. It connects via Bluetooth 5.3 and its battery is charged via USB-C port, offering a total autonomy of up to 17 hours of use. ⚡ IN SUMMARY: xiaomi tv f 32 + xiaomi tv f 43 + xiaomi bluetooth speaker pack ✅ THE BEST Qunbeatable strength: For what a single TV usually costs, with this pack you get two televisions (ideal for the bedroom, kitchen or your second home) and, in addition, a Bluetooth speaker as a gift. Integration with Alexa: Coming with Fire TV as standard, if you have Alexa-compatible devices at home, you can easily control them from the TV using voice commands. ❌ THE WORST The brightness in HDR… Although it supports HDR10 and HLG, the maximum brightness is still somewhat limited if you put the TV in a brightly lit room. Advertising on the interface… Fire TV is a great system, but Amazon tends to be quite aggressive by showing recommendations and ads in the main menu. 💡 BUY IT IF… You already use Alexa at home and consume Prime Video, there is no better option. The remote with a dedicated button to talk to the voice assistant is very good. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… Your living room is very bright, reflections could be a problem, especially if you have a large window right in front of you. You may also be interested

In 2014 Amazon failed miserably with its Fire Phone. AI has given him the perfect excuse to go back to his old ways

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In 2014 Jeff Bezos was still the absolute boss of Amazon. And it occurred to him that Amazon should have its own smartphone, so the company ended up launching the fire phone. That device boasted a 3D screen that overheated the battery and a catalog without the apps that everyone used, but it also it was very expensive for the time ($649). It was canceled 14 months later and became one of the most notorious failures of the recent history of technology. Now Amazon wants to try again with a project codenamed Transformer. Same idea, different time. In reality, the underlying concept has not changed much since 2014. Here Amazon’s goal is to have its own device that has Alexa as an integral part of the experience, but that is also a gateway for purchases on Amazon, connects with Prime Video or its food delivery services. Or what is the same: it is the perfect mobile for those who make their lives revolve around the Amazon ecosystem. And be careful, because what failed in the past may have a chance now. AI as an argument. The Transformer project wants to integrate AI functions to ensure that with it we do what theoretically will end up arriving sooner or later: that we simply ask for what we need so that the phone takes care of everything. Alexa would be a central component of that experience here, and the advantage that Amazon has is that it has the infrastructure and ecosystem that should allow doing something like this. AI agents begin to demonstrate their potential —we are seeing it with OpenClaw—and if Amazon can make that shopping experience easier, you may have a winning idea here. A team with tables. The project is led by J. Allard from an internal unit called ZeroOne in which the objective is to create “revolutionary” devices. Allard was one of the fathers of the original Xbox at Microsoft and also of the Zune, the music player that tried to compete with the iPod and failed. But above him is Panos Panay, who headed the Surface division at Microsoft before joining Amazon. They are certainly two veterans with a lot of experience in the hardware field and know first-hand what it is like to compete with the market leaders from disadvantaged positions. Now they have a unique opportunity to shine, but the challenge is colossal. The ‘dumbphone’ as a back door. One of the most curious twists of the project is that Amazon is not only exploring a conventional smartphone, but also a “dumbphone.” That is, a simple and minimalist mobile with limited functions inspired by the Light Phone and its interface “dumbed down“. The argument is striking: here it is not about trying to unseat the iPhone as the main device, and instead Amazon could position it as “a second phone.” Mobile phones with limited functions represented 15% of global mobile sales in 2025 according to Counterpoint Researchand although it is a small market, Amazon may have an interesting entry point there. But. The context, however, complicates everything. Amazon comes to this project at a particularly difficult time for mobile hardware. The number of smartphones distributed (“sold”) will probably fall more than ever in 2026, and in fact the preliminary descent of that figure is 13% due especially to the RAM crisis. AI hardware is the holy grail. To this we must add the fact that for now no AI hardware device has succeeded, and those who have tried have been an absolute failure. The Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit R1 have been painful lessons for an industry that now certainly wants to try again—let them tell it to OpenAI and its alliance with Jony Ive—. The project is underway, but it is not ruled out that Amazon ends up canceling it if the strategy changes or the numbers do not add up. A golden opportunity. But what is certain is that Amazon has indisputable advantages in getting it right. For example, a service ecosystem with hundreds of millions of active users who already shop, watch content, and use Alexa, even if it’s just to set timers. The multi-million dollar investment in Anthropic and a relationship increasingly narrower with OpenAI they can also be key in this project. The question, of course, is whether an AI phone can really convince us to switch phones. And Amazon wants to have the answer to that question. In Xataka | NVIDIA is doing better than ever. And there is also more competition ready to eat it than ever.

We have been looking for fire hydrants in photos for years to prove that we are not a robot. Turns out we were the robot after all

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It happens to us every day: we try to enter a website and suddenly a grid of poor quality photos requires us to identify all the traffic lights, buses or even fire hydrants even though in Spain, for example, they do not have the characteristic design that is applied in the US. When we solve these puzzles we are not only proving that we are not a robot: we are working for Google. Google slaves. In the early 2000s, bots were destroying the internet, but a young man named Luis von Ahn had a great idea to stop them. Believe CAPTCHAa system that forced us to identify distorted words to prove that we were human and thus be able to access the content. That system evolved and Google bought the idea and turned it into a perfect system for something we have barely noticed: working for it. From Google Maps to Waymo. Since then, Google has not stopped taking advantage of the system for two intertwined objectives. The first, effectively, protect us from bots. The second, also known but much juicier for the company, is to turn us all into information taggers. Internet users first recognized words and became a gigantic OCR system that was applied to Google Maps. Then, with images, we ended up helping Google’s image recognition systems improve significantly. That has served, among other things, to feed the Waymo autonomous driving systems. Statistical consensus. How does Google know that when we choose a fire hydrant or a bus we are responding correctly? It knows this through the so-called “statistical consensus.” Google usually presents images in pairs: one of them (the control image) has already been previously identified by thousands of people, while the other is an “orphan” image that its computer vision algorithms cannot decipher. If you guess the known one, Google assumes you are human and uses your answer about the unknown image to feed its database. We are the product. All of our readers were probably already very aware of this reality, but now a debate is beginning to activate about the ethics and ownership of digital work. It is something that we already saw with social networks, which were fed by our content, and that certainly also applies to Google: to what extent is it legal for a company to have a huge AI infrastructure thanks to the billions of hours of unpaid “microwork” of its users? Here the famous “If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product.“. It is true that these Google systems have protected us from bots and we have not paid for them “with money”… but with those micro-jobs that we have carried out when solving the puzzles of the reCAPTACHA systems. Is it possible to poison the algorithm? Here also doubts arise about the true reliability of the system. If a mass group of users decided to mislabel traffic lights or fire hydrants in an organized way, would a self-driving car make dangerous decisions in the real world? That risk seems reasonable, and considering that AI models are increasingly more capable in abstract reasoning and even overcoming captchasan attack by AI bots that did something like this poses a threat worrying. The invisible CAPTCHA. Google itself knows that visual CAPTCHAs are no longer so insurmountable for machines, so it has been moving its systems towards reCAPTCHA v3a invisible system that does not require you to look for buses, zebra crossings or fire hydrants that you will never see on a street in Malaga or Bilbao. Instead, this system opaquely analyzes your behavior in front of the PC: how you move the mouse, what cookies you have installed and how you navigate. Or what is the same: Google thinks it knows how a human behaves when you’re going to click on “I’m not a robot”… when we’ve been working like robots for years and solving those puzzles. a brilliant idea. What is clear is that CAPTCHA has been a brilliant idea with implications that not even Google could have anticipated. In fact, it has turned this tool into a way to feed its artificial intelligence systems with our help, without us practically knowing (or caring much). But you know: the next time a website asks you to identify fire hydrants before entering it, remember that you are not demonstrating your humanity. You’re signing on to the afternoon shift at one of the largest data factories on the planet. In Xataka | The US blocked its most advanced chips from China to stop its AI. The result: China makes tokens cheaper than anyone else

That is precisely why he is going to fire 40% of the staff.

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Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and current CEO of Block (which manages Square, Cash App and Tidal), has just done something that few CEOs dare to do: fire 40% of his employees at once, at a time when is making profits. The most curious thing is that its investors seem to agree with Dorsey’s decision and have celebrated it with a historic rise in the company’s shares. Thus, Block will go from having more than 10,000 workers to just under 6,000. That leaves a balance of more than 4,000 layoffs in a single day. Dorsey does not hide: the official reason is increased productivity What artificial intelligence offers. A 40% cut with benefits. Dorsey communicated his plans to lay off 40% of his staff through a post on Xand justified it as a proactive move, not a response to any financial problem. According to the CEO himself, the company is going through a good economic moment and is marking an upward path in profits. “We did not make this decision because we are in trouble. Our business is solid. Gross profits continue to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers and profitability is improving,” the CEO confirmed in his statement. That is precisely one of the keys that it is marking the latest rounds of layoffs and it makes a big difference in terms of the traditional reasons why companies fired their employees. As its CEO points out, the layoffs are not the result of a financial crisis, but rather are due to the increase (or the promise of that increase). in productivity that AI automation brings. This technology allows do the same with less staff. “We’re already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re building and using, along with smaller, flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working that fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a business. And that’s accelerating rapidly,” Dorsey wrote in his message. Those laid off do not stay stranded. The more than 4,000 employees affected by the unexpected layoff will receive 20 weeks of base salary plus one additional week for each year of seniority in the company. According to collect Business Insideremployees affected by staff cuts They will be able to keep their corporate devices and will be given an additional payment of $5,000. As Dorsey explained, they are aware that, in the short term, the layoffs were going to be irremediable, so instead of progressively reducing their workforce, they have chosen to cut short, avoiding smaller rounds of layoffs that damage the morale and focus of the staff and the trust of clients and shareholders. “I would rather take firm, clear action now and build from a position of belief than manage a slow downsizing toward the same outcome.” Why now and why so many. According what was published by WiredBlock has been applying personnel cuts in different departments for months. The company had already laid off 931 employees in March 2025 and nearly 1,000 more jobs in January 2024. One of the reasons behind these successive layoffs is the correction of overhiring during the pandemic, a correction that caused hundreds of thousands of layoffs among the main technology companies between 2022 and 2024. This is an argument that Dorsey has not deniedbut it does not stand out as the main trigger for layoffs, putting the target on the increase in productivity that AI provides. Block surpassed 12,000 employees in 2022, in a stage of accelerated expansion that now, with AI tools integrated into the workflow, is impossible to justify. Block CFO Amrita Ahuja was quite blunt about it, ensuring that the layoffs will allow the company to move faster “with smaller, highly talented teams that use AI to automate more work.” Investors applaud him. Block shares they were shot more than 24% after the announcement. This is the reflection of a dynamic that is becoming increasingly common in which investors reward with increases in share prices and massive layoffs as a sign of efficiency and modernization. Michael Blank, associate professor of finance at Stanford Business School, explained to Business Insider that this dynamic could unleash a competition between CEOs of large companies to convince investors that their companies are better prepared than their rivals, thus turning massive layoffs into a tool to improve capitalization figures. Block’s stock had been struggling for months before the announcement. According to data collected by Ad Hoc News In February, the stock was trading 21% below its start-of-year price and 37% below its 52-week high. In that context, Dorsey would have managed to kill two birds with one stone: reorganize his company towards a more AI-oriented model and relaunch investor confidence. Doing more with less: the key to layoffs. With his decision, Dorsey has left a message that goes far beyond Block’s management itself, and proposes a change in the relationship between the number of people a company needs to do a job. “It seems inevitable that this will spread to all publicly traded companies. We have to find a way for everyone to be an owner and have some exposure to the benefits, as the number of employees drops dramatically,” said Jessica Verrilli, CEO of the venture investment fund Adverb Ventures. in response to Dorsey’s post. In the presentation of Block’s results, the CEO assured that the increase in AI productivity It inevitably led to staff cuts because fewer hands were needed to do the job. “I don’t think we’re the first to realize this. I think most companies are late,” collected Business Insider. He’s not the only one who thinks so. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has been running a similar strategy for years and, in a recent interviewassured that by 2030 his company will be able to do without 30% of the 3,000 employees who currently make up the payment platform’s workforce due to the increase in productivity provided by AI. In Xataka | “The world is in danger”: Anthropic’s security manager leaves the company to write poetry Image … Read more

AI is just an excuse to fire

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For months, layoffs at big tech have been justified under the umbrella of AI as if it were the great devourer of jobs. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, assures that these companies have used AI as a scapegoat to carry out unpopular cuts which have nothing to do with, in fact, anything to do with the actual use or implementation of this technology. This trick, known as “AI washing“ or AI laundering, has allowed companies to make up workforce adjustments to readjust to a new market situation after overhiring during the pandemic and save costs, while at the same time imbuing themselves with a technological innovation patina. The perfect excuse. In an interview for the American network CNBC On the occasion of the India IA Impact Summit, Sam Altman attacked those who were using AI as a pretext to fire their staff. However, the founder of OpenAI described a two-pronged scenario: on the one hand, there are companies that rely on the AI ​​narrative to justify unpopular cuts. “I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but there’s a bit of ‘AI washing’ where people blame AI for layoffs they would do anyway.” However, the manager also recognized that the arrival of AI was indeed displacing some profiles due to the automation of certain administrative tasks, although he justified this displacement as part of the natural technological evolution.​ “We will find new types of jobs, as we do with each technological revolution.” Altman acknowledges that “the real impact of AI on employment in the coming years will begin to be palpable,” but he does not believe that the current impact of AI on the labor market is so severe as to be the direct cause of the hundreds of thousands of layoffs which were executed in 2025. The data does not fit the narrative. A study of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) revealed that almost 90% of the 6,000 managers of companies from the US, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia who participated stated that AI has not affected employment in the three years after the launch of ChatGPT. Other report Prepared by The Budget Lab at Yale University, it analyzed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics until November 2025 and found no significant variations in unemployment in the occupations most exposed to the impact of AI. Martha Gimbel, co-director of the laboratory that prepared the report, assured to Fortune that “No matter what perspective you look at the data, at this very moment it doesn’t look like there are any major macroeconomic effects here.” According to the report data of the Challenger, Gray & Christmas labor platform, in 2025 were attributed directly to the AI ​​some 54,836 layoffs, out of a total of 1,206,374 layoffs in the US during 2025. This implies that the AI ​​was really behind 0.045% of the total of all layoffs for the year. The threat is real. Although AI is not the real reason behind the current layoffs, its impact on the labor market in the coming years is undeniable. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, stated a few days ago to Business Insider that “half of office jobs could disappear in the next five years.” Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of the Klarna payment platform, which has already dispensed with part of its staff to implement AI customer service agents, spoke along the same lines. in an interview. The manager assured that by 2030 his company will be able to do without 30% of the 3,000 employees who currently make up the payment platform’s workforce. On the other hand, as how he published he Financial Timesthe data are already beginning to show the first effects of the increase in productivity derived from technological investment with a relative drop of 13% in the employment of junior workers in positions highly exposed to AI. Don’t call it AI, call it dropping ballast. However, the incipient arrival of AI in the coming years does not justify that the layoffs that have been carried out throughout 2025 are as a direct effect of AI or because an AI has replaced the worker. In a statementAmazon linked the dismissal of 16,000 employees to AI, saying it would need “fewer people for some jobs done today.” Days later, at a conference with investors, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy disassociated the layoffs from AI, stating that “The announcement we made a few days ago didn’t have a real financial boost, it’s not even driven by AI, at least not right now. It’s a cultural issue.” Microsoft and other companies have followed the same pattern of justification for dismissals making excuses for AI, when in reality AI is not implemented enough in companies to be a reason for dismissal in rounds of tens of thousands of employees. Call it business strategy, but don’t blame AI. In Xataka | “The world is in danger”: Anthropic’s security manager leaves the company to write poetry Image | Wikipedia

“The more times you are late for work, the harder it will be for the company to fire you”

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Arriving late to work every day, leaving before your time or committing various irregularities in your day can cause your company to give you a warning, sanction you or, in the most serious cases, even apply a disciplinary dismissal for breaching the conditions you accepted in your employment contract. However, as labor lawyer Juanma Lorente highlights in one of his recent videosif you do it repetitively and the company does not warn you for it, that violation can become your best ally to protect you from disciplinary dismissal. Being late is bad, but it can protect you. The labor expert explains in his video a legal paradox in which the company’s inaction can turn an infraction into the best defense for a worker against a legal claim for disciplinary dismissal. The lawyer explains the situation with a very simple example: “Imagine that you have been late to work for 2 years. 5, 10 or 15 minutes and the company does not tell you anything. You arrive and sign in with the real time at which you are arriving and the company tolerates it. From one moment to the next, after two years of arriving late, you find a dismissal letter in which they fire you for arriving late.” According to Lorente, this dismissal would be unfair because the company allowed the “habit” of being late for two years, without reacting in all that time. The expert assures that this inaction represents a tacit permissiveness of that conduct, which is why it could not be used as a reason for dismissal before a judge. Silence gives consent. Although it may be incongruous, since the employee’s violation is effectively proven, the repetition of this behavior without a response from the company is known as corporate tolerance. As and how do they count From the Lex-it law firm, this case occurs when a company is aware of the worker’s repeated infraction, such as repeated delays, but does not sanction it for a long time. This means that a subsequent dismissal for the same reason is seen as unfair by the judges, since the company seemed to accept it and “tolerate” the infraction. As the labor lawyer points out, “If he has not previously sanctioned you for the same thing, has allowed it and has tolerated it, he will not be able to use it to fire you.” ​This principle forces companies to follow a scale of sanctions that is applied from the first infraction of employees: from a simple specific warning to suspensions, before reaching disciplinary dismissal. Ignoring this scale of warnings means that the company cannot allege it as a “direct” reason for dismissal because, according to the court, the company tolerated this behavior. The Supreme Court has already applied it. The Supreme Court has confirmed this doctrine in several rulings in which disciplinary dismissals have been rejected because companies have cited infractions as reasons for dismissal that they have tolerated for years without any warning. The result in all cases has been to reject the disciplinary dismissals and declare them unfair dismissals with compensation of 33 days per year worked, despite it being proven that, in fact, the employee had been committing a violation of the conditions for a long time. In one of those sentencesthe Supreme Court states: “Sanctioning with the greatest severity (disciplinary dismissal) conduct that had previously been tolerated, without any prior warning to the employee that such tolerance was going to end, would be contrary to the employer’s good faith.” ​A practical example: he was late 176 times. A very clear example of this legal paradox is found in the case of the employee of an optician in Asturias who arrived late to her job up to 176 times without the company reprimanding her for it. When the company informed him of his disciplinary dismissal, the Superior Court of Justice of Asturias considered it “irrational, disproportionate and incongruous.” The reason was that the company had demonstrated business tolerance by allowing 176 delays without warning or sanctioning the employee, and resorting directly to disciplinary dismissal. In Xataka | Going to the bathroom is not work: a Swiss court allows a company to force its employees to clock in when they go to the bathroom Image | Unsplash (Campaign Creators)

With the new Amazon pack you will not have to connect the Fire TV Stick to the power

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Fire TV Sticks work by connecting them to an HDMI port on your TV and a power outlet, but What if we skip this last step? There is an accessory that allows you to do this, and Amazon has now included it in a new pack that sells for 44.99 euros and that also includes a Fire TV Stick HD. Fire TV Stick HD + Mission Cables Adapter The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A new Fire TV Stick HD pack Mission Cables is a brand that manufactures accessories for some of Amazon’s devices, such as the portable battery for Echo Dot or, in this case, the adapter for the Fire TV Stick. This last accessory allows us to skip the step of connecting the dongle to a power outlet, and It does it through a USB-A port on the television. It is ideal if we have few power outlets nearby or if we simply have a power strip (or do not have one directly) occupied by other devices, something that can be common if we have the TV, a sound bar or the router connected. The adapter is Compatible with all Fire TV Sticks (although nothing is mentioned about the Fire TV Stick 4K Select), so if you are interested in buying it on Amazon it has a price of 24.99 euros. As for the Fire TV Stick HDthis is a model aimed at televisions that do not offer 4K resolution and are not compatible with Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmosalthough it can perfectly be used on any television that at least has an HDMI port. Integrate the voice assistant Alexa and it comes with a remote that has shortcut buttons to apps like YouTube or Netflix. You may also be interested Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus, compatible with Wi-Fi 6, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and HDR10+ The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Amazon Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition (latest generation) | With color screen, self-adjusting front light, wireless charging and long battery life | 32GB The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Enrique PerezAmazon In Xataka | The best mobile phones, we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Best Amazon Fire TV. Which one to buy and recommended models to convert your TV into a smart TV depending on use

The Fire TV Stick that I advise almost everyone I know to buy is halfway between HD and 4K

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Very recently, Amazon launched a new model of the Fire TV Stick with the aim of covering a good part of the market. He Fire TV Stick Select is positioned as a attractive device for many televisions that are compatible with some of the functions and technologies present in the Fire TV Stick 4K and 4K Maxbut not with all of them. Fire TV Stick 4K Select (latest generation) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A device halfway between HD and 4K models He Fire TV Stick Select is the second dongle cheapest on Amazon and is halfway in terms of specifications (and price) between the HD and 4K models. It is the one that I usually recommend to my acquaintances, since it shares some similarities with these two devices, the most interesting being the 4K resolution which is present in all Fire TV Sticks, except for the HD. Although the device is compatible with formats such as HDR10, HDR10+ or ​​HLGit is not with some of the most interesting technologies for viewing content, as is the case with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. That is why it is more aimed at those televisions that can play 4K content, but their screens or speakers are not compatible with the two Dolby formats. What we also find is compatibility with the cloud gaming servicessomething that until now was only present in the 4K and 4K Max models. In this way, as long as you have an active subscription, you can access services such as Amazon Moon and Xbox Game Pass. You may also be interested Xiaomi TV Box S (3rd Gen), 4K Ultra HD Streaming Media Player, 2GB RAM, 32GB Memory Smart TV Box, Supports Google TV, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, Dolby Atmos, DTS-X, Wireless Projection, WiFi 6, Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Pro Media Player; 4K HDR Movies, Live Sports, Dolby Vision-Atmos, AI Upscaling, GeForce NOW Cloud Gaming, Google Assistant, Alexa Compatible The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | amazon In Xataka | Best Amazon Fire TV. Which one to buy and recommended models to convert your TV into a smart TV depending on use In Xataka | Best “smart” Amazon Echo speakers. Which one to buy and recommendations based on use

We thought we “discovered” fire 50,000 years ago. We didn’t know how wrong we were.

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For decades paleontology has maintained a clear distinction in history: it is one thing to use fire and quite another to create it at will. Something that seems very silly, but is essential since until now the evidence we had on the table pointed to the ability to light a bonfire from scratch They dated back 50,000 years. But this has changed. A big change. A published study in Nature He told us that we were quite wrong about this. A team of researchers has pointed out that hominids already possessed technology to make fire voluntarily 415,000 years ago. That is, 375,000 years earlier than we thought. Although what is surprising is that it was not even our species, but the early Neanderthals. Something that has been known after studying a site found in Barnham in England that has given the necessary evidence to reach the end of the matter. How do we know? At the moment we do not have a time machine to travel to the past and see what happened in our history. That is why this discovery makes it surprising that they used reverse engineering to reach this conclusion. The elements that were available at the site were not just ashes, but the “ignition kit.” Researchers were able to identify fragments of pyrite and flint axes, which can be used to make fire. Although the key here is that the pyrite It is not native to that area, but hominids had to intentionally transport it to make fire voluntarily. The mechanism is, in essence, the prehistoric version of a modern lighter: striking the pyrite with the flint generates sparks capable of igniting dry tinder. Confirming it. With these indications, anyone could think that it could be a random fire, and that is why advanced techniques such as archeomagnetism, micromorphology and spectroscopy were used. In this case, the results indicated that the sediments had been heated to more than 700 ºC, which suggests that it was a concentrated and fed fire. This is also added to the fact that the flint axes presented specific cracks caused by cycles of heat and cooling, indicating that fires were made repeatedly. A big jump. The importance of this discovery is monumental since until now we assumed that complete control of fire was a late skill. This discovery sets the controlled ignition clock back by 375,000 years compared to previous evidence from French sites. This tells us that the minds of early Neanderthals, who were most likely found in that area, were more developed than thought. In this way, transporting pyrite implies long-term planning, which is not an instinctive reaction to the cold, evidencing a cognitive ability to think about the future. The domain of fire. Making fire at will is considered a great evolutionary advance since fire can lengthen the day for nighttime socialization or even cook food to obtain more energy with less digestive effort. This also represents a great geographical expansion for the species, since 400,000 years ago Europe was going through a very important glacial period, which made the heat of fire essential for the species to perpetuate itself. Images | Mladen Borisov In Xataka | Neither lions nor hyenas: at the top of the food chain 30 million years ago, there was a “pig” weighing more than a thousand kilos

If the question is whether they can geolocate you during your work day and use it to fire you, justice leaves no doubt: yes

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Know that your company knows where are you every minute of your workday can generate discomfort and even doubts about its legality. However, the courts have been clarifying this area for some time. A recent ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of Asturias does so with unusual forcefulness. The case involves an elevator maintenance technician and an application time control which recorded, in addition to his schedule, the exact point from which he clocked in. What seemed like a routine tool ended up becoming the key to a disciplinary dismissal which today is fully validated by justice. Schedule control with advanced features. As detailed in the sentence issued by the Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Asturias, a maintenance employee of an elevator company used a time control application installed on the corporate mobile. His function was simple: mark the beginning and end of his day and do it from the place where he attended to each incident. The company distributed the routes on a daily basis and registration had to be done at the customer’s location, not from another point. However, the employee’s workday began to show strange patterns. In one month, the company detected up to 11 outbound signings made from the employee’s home and coinciding with work hours. The record indicated that, instead of closing his last intervention from the customer’s location, the technician finished his day on time, but already at home. Notices, warnings… and a disciplinary dismissal. The company did not act immediately. Before the dismissal, he issued several internal warnings to the worker and reminded him of the operation of the application, pointing out the irregularities detected and reminding him the obligation to sign from each real location. Even so, the signings from home continued, so the company interpreted that the agreed working day was being breached. Finally, he proceeded to the disciplinary dismissal, considering it proven that the technician ended his day prematurely and from a place outside the workplace. The Social Chamber of the TSJA confirmed the decision of disciplinary dismissal and validated the use of geolocation as evidence. What the law says. The TSJA ruling is based on the article 20.3 of the Workers’ Statutewhich specifies “the employer may adopt the surveillance and control measures he deems most appropriate to verify compliance by the worker with his or her work obligations and duties.” Therefore, and given the mobility nature of the position, the time control system with geolocation was justified. In addition, Organic Law 3/2018 on Data Protection (LOPDGDD) specifically regulates geolocation systems. Your article 90 requires clear information about the existence of these systems, their purpose, the scope of the processing and data protection rights. In this case, the app was corporate, the device belonged to the company, the worker knew how it worked, and the application only recorded the location when the application was opened. Taking all these regulations into account, the TSJA considered that the company acted within the law and used a proportional tool, linked to strictly labor purposes and correctly communicated to the employee. Time nuances. He Workers Statute It also precisely delimits when the day begins and ends. Article 34.5 establishes that “working time will be calculated so that both at the beginning and at the end of the daily shift the worker is at his or her workplace.” This is where we have to differentiate workplace and job position. It is not a minor nuance: effective working time begins when one is operationally available to perform the assigned functions. This does not mean that the employee must arrive at the workplace at the agreed time, but rather that he must be at his workplace at that time. If there are 10 minutes from the company entrance to your position and you arrive at the work center at your agreed time, you would be arriving 10 minutes late. The same applies at departure time. That employee must remain at his position until the agreed time, and then collect his things and leave the company. If you are leaving the company premises at the agreed time at the end of the day, you would be leaving 10 minutes early. The only exception to the rule: there is no job to go to. The Supreme Court has recognized a relevant exception: When the company does not have offices, premises or any physical space where workers can start their day, the employee’s home can be considered a valid starting point for the day. This doctrine applies especially to completely decentralized companies whose workers only move from client to client. In these situations (well accredited and exceptional), the travel time from home to the first client can be counted as workbecause the home assumes the function of the only available operating point. But as long as there is a work center or a clearly defined place where the activity can begin, this exception does not apply. Clocking in from home, as in the case of the Asturias elevator technician, is not justified and is a non-compliance with working hours. In Xataka | Breakfast and the first 15 minutes of entry are work: the Supreme Court sets the limits of time control Image | Unsplash (Kevin Grieve)

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